Oatmeal Supplement Meridian ID

This page provides useful content and local businesses that can help with your search for Oatmeal Supplement. You will find helpful, informative articles about Oatmeal Supplement, including "Feeling Your Oats". You will also find local businesses that provide the products or services that you are looking for. Please scroll down to find the local resources in Meridian, ID that will answer all of your questions about Oatmeal Supplement.

Feeling Your Oats

Feeling Your Oats

A fiber from this popular grain can help improve your circulation.

by Lisa James

February 2009

Who hasn’t enjoyed tucking into a warm, comforting bowl of oatmeal on a cold winter’s day? Whether consumed as a hot breakfast, in baked goods or as part of such healthy goodies as granola, this ancient grain boasts a long history of providing nutritious sustenance for man and beast alike.

One reason the oat is so beneficial is a fiber found in its outer covering, or bran—a heart-healthy substance known as oat beta-glucans. Now this valuable fiber is available in a supplemental form that can bring the benefits of oat bran to a wide variety of beverages, bars and other foods.

Circulation Hazard One of the most common causes of cardiac trouble is atherosclerosis. In this process, fatty deposits called plaques accumulate within arteries, including the coronary arteries that feed the heart muscle itself. (To learn more, see “System Alert!” on page 30.) Many factors cause plaque development, but one significant issue is the presence of excess cholesterol in the blood.

Your body makes its own cholesterol, which serves a variety of uses. But cholesterol’s fatty consistency means that it needs a partner, called a lipoprotein, to carry it through the watery bloodstream. There are two main types, low and high density (LDL and HDL). Of the two, LDL can become problematic if it’s affected by oxidation, a process similar to the rusting of a car. Oxidized LDL is prone to becoming trapped in plaque. HDL, the “good” kind to LDL’s “bad,” actually appears to help carry cholesterol away from the artery walls and back to the liver for processing.

Cutting the Cholesterol Oat beta-glucans helps reduce cholesterol because its soluble fiber absorbs water, forming a thick gel in the digestive system. Not only does this gel provide a more lasting feeling of fullness, which helps curb overall calorie intake, it traps the cholesterol found in food and carries such dietary cholesterol out of the body. In the same way, oat beta-glucans helps mop up some of the bile that your body pours into the intestines to digest fat. The liver uses cholesterol taken from the bloodstream to create bile, so this action also helps to reduce cholesterol levels.

Oat beta-glucans has proven its cholesterol-fighting worth in clinical research. In one study at the University of Minnesota, 75 people with high cholesterol received either 6 grams of oat beta-glucans or 6 grams of a lookalike placebo. In the oat supplement group levels of both total and LDL cholesterol fell after six weeks, with reductions significantly greater than those in the placebo group (Nutrition Journal 3/07). And while lowering LDL is certainly a good thing, raising HDL at the same time is even better—something oat beta-glucans has been able to do (American Journal of Thera­peutics 3-4/07).

Excess blood sugar, or glucose, is just as bad for the circulatory system a...

This page provides relevant content and local businesses that can help with your search for information on Vitamin B Supplements.
You will find informative articles about Vitamin B Supplements, including "The B Team".
Below you will also find local businesses that may provide the products or services you are looking for.
Please scroll down to find the local resources in Meridian, ID that can help answer your questions about Vitamin B Supplements.